Thatcher Mulled Northern Ireland Pullout Amid Hunger Strikes

In her summing-up, Margaret Thatcher, seen here in 1981, “said that further thought would need to be given to all possible courses of action in regard to Northern Ireland, however difficult or unpalatable.” Source: Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Dec. 30 (Bloomberg) -- Margaret Thatcher considered pulling
out of Northern Ireland in 1981 as hunger strikes by republican
prisoners brought international condemnation, in contrast to her
public position that she would “not flinch” from keeping the
province in the U.K., previously secret papers show.

While members of Thatcher’s Cabinet warned that such a move
risked bloodshed, civil war and unrest among the Irish diaspora
in British cities, the prime minister said all options should be
considered, the documents released today after the statutory 30-year delay show. She also took part in drafting proposals to the
prisoners aimed at bringing the protests over their conditions
to an end even as her government said publicly it was not
involved in negotiations.

“Many people in Britain now believed that a settlement of
the complex problems of the area would be more easily reached by
the Irish on their own and that continued British involvement
could only mean the futile sacrifice of further British lives,”
the confidential report of a Cabinet meeting on July 2 says. In
her summing-up, Thatcher “said that further thought would need
to be given to all possible courses of action in regard to
Northern Ireland, however difficult or unpalatable.”

Ten prisoners from the paramilitary Irish Republican Army
starved themselves to death in a protest that lasted from March
until October. They included Bobby Sands, who was elected as a
member of the House of Commons while in jail. The detainees said
they shouldn’t be treated as criminals and demanded the rights
of prisoners of war, including wearing their own clothes and
avoiding prison work. The Cabinet records show ministers were
given regular updates on their health.

‘Real Aim’

At the July 2 session, at which they discussed the
possibility of forced intravenous feeding of the prisoners,
ministers considered a British withdrawal from the province,
which they said was the hunger strikers’ “real aim” and was
supported by “widespread feeling” in British public opinion.
Also weighing on their minds were “increasingly disturbing
signs of an erosion of international confidence in British
policy.”

Ministers acknowledged such a move could result in civil
war and “massive bloodshed” in Northern Ireland as well as
unrest among Irish communities in the rest of the U.K.,
according to the report, which was considered so sensitive that
only one copy was made. “Even the suggestion of a withdrawal
could lead to serious unrest in western Scotland,” it said.

Troubles

Ireland was partitioned in 1921, with the mainly Protestant
northeast staying within the U.K. More than 3,500 people were
killed in the conflict known as the Troubles, which began in the
late 1960s and saw republican and loyalist paramilitaries waging
campaigns of terror. British troops were deployed in Northern
Ireland in 1969 and ended operations in 2007 after the
province’s political parties agreed to share power.

While it was emphasized in public in 1981 that there were
no negotiations between the government and the hunger strikers,
the files released today include detailed secret reports on
discussions through an intermediary codenamed “Soon,” who was
speaking to nationalist leaders including Martin McGuinness, now
deputy first minister of Northern Ireland.

Thatcher was kept informed of the talks, including being
briefed after midnight on July 8, and her handwriting appears to
be on a draft of an offer of concessions to be made to the
prisoners, which she approved.

‘We Shall Deny’

“If the reply we receive is unsatisfactory and there is
subsequently any public reference to this exchange we shall deny
that it took place,” it says at the bottom of the text of the
proposal, which involved changes to prison conditions and was
rejected by the republicans.

President Ronald Reagan’s new U.S. administration was
praised for its “reticence” over Northern Ireland in the face
of growing pressure from the Irish diaspora, according to a
briefing note preparing the ground for a visit to the U.K. by
Vice President George Bush.

U.K. diplomats in Washington were watching the new
administration with interest and Thatcher, the first leader
invited to see Reagan, was already a fan.

“I’m really quite optimistic,” she told West German
Chancellor Helmut Schmidt by phone in November 1980.

Stephen Wall, a British diplomat, wrote that while Reagan
didn’t give the impression that he “grasps the complexity of
foreign-policy issues, and the fact that they are linked
together” and that he “clearly does not do his homework,” he
nevertheless “comes across as a man at ease in his job.”

‘More Formidable’

Reagan, he wrote in August 1981, “is probably the first
president since Kennedy to be regarded as both competent and
decent. While his intellectual capacity may not equal that of
his predecessor, he is a much more formidable politician than
many imagined.”

There was a culture clash during preparations for the Bush
visit when the U.K. security services held out against Secret
Service agents accompanying the vice president being allowed to
carry guns. The concern was that if Bush’s security detail could
bring weapons, agents accompanying the first lady, Nancy Reagan,
would want to do the same for the wedding of Prince Charles and
Diana Spencer in London on July 29 and all visiting dignitaries
would claim the same right.

The British also objected to the U.S. Secret Service
checking security arrangements they had made for Bush’s visit.
Martin Berthoud from the Foreign Office’s North America
Department related a “bizarre incident” involving the wife of
Foreign Secretary Peter Carrington in which U.S. officials met
with and were defeated by the force of the British aristocracy.

‘Sent Them Packing’

“A group of Secret Service men attempted to check out Lady
Carrington’s residence prior to her tea for Mrs. Bush without
previous arrangement. She sent them packing,” Berthoud wrote.
They “also contrived to infuriate the secretary of state
himself by attempting to post their man as a guard outside his
office door. Lord Carrington has said he will not allow this to
happen again.”

The files released today also show how arguments with
France, as Prime Minister David Cameron has experienced in
dealings with President Nicolas Sarkozy over the European Union
in recent weeks, are a British tradition.

Officials preparing in 1979 for a visit by French President
Valery Giscard d’Estaing showed their counterparts into the
Cabinet Room in the prime minister’s 10 Downing Street
residence, where Thatcher was proposing to hold talks with him.
The French expressed concern when they saw that Thatcher’s would
be the only chair in the room with arms.

“The Elysee party pointed out that they would consider it
essential for the president to have a chair equal in status --
i.e. with arms -- to the prime minister,” a British aide wrote
in a memo. “Alternatively, would the prime minister swap her
chair for a ‘regular’ (i.e. armless) model? Sorry about this --
the French made the point quite seriously.”

Carrington asked the British ambassador in Paris to “get
this little matter sorted.” In response, the French suggested
Thatcher could sit in a different chair, before agreeing to
check whether previous French presidents had objected to the
seating arrangement. The outcome isn’t recorded.